Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
Michael Corleone · Al Pacino's mafia heir in The Godfather films (1972, 1974, 1990) · Michael, in his father's old study, tells Frank Pentangeli it is a lesson Vito taught him in that very room.
Michael Corleone · Al Pacino's mafia heir in The Godfather films (1972, 1974, 1990) · Michael, in his father's old study, tells Frank Pentangeli it is a lesson Vito taught him in that very room.
Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi · Shared everywhere under Gandhi's name, but no speech or writing of his with these words has been found.
Often credited to Nathaniel Hawthorne · Hawthorne never wrote it, and neither did Thoreau, who also gets the credit; the earliest version is an anonymous 1848 newspaper piece in the New Orleans Daily Crescent, signed only "L."
Aristotle · The conclusion of his argument in the Nicomachean Ethics that happiness is the one thing we want for its own sake. The popular line "Happiness depends upon ourselves" is a paraphrase of the same book, not his words.
Helen Keller · A journal entry of December 10, 1936, written while she was mourning her teacher Anne Sullivan.
Eleanor Roosevelt · From the chapter "Learning to Be Useful" in her last book, written at 76.
Attributed to Benjamin Franklin · Not found in Franklin's papers; the Library of Congress lists it as unverified, and the earliest print appearance is a Boston newspaper of 1849 that tacked it onto a Franklin saying about emptying one's purse into one's head.
Sun Tzu · The Art of War, chapter III, in Lionel Giles's 1910 translation, the standard English text.
William Shakespeare · Spoken by the jester Touchstone in As You Like It, Act 5, Scene 1.
Albert Einstein · Said to George Sylvester Viereck in an interview published in The Saturday Evening Post on 26 October 1929.
Seneca · From Letter 13, "On Groundless Fears", to his friend Lucilius, in Richard M. Gummere's translation.
Lao Tzu · Tao Te Ching chapter 64 in James Legge's translation; a li is a Chinese mile, hence the familiar "journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".
Marcus Aurelius · Written in his private notebook while on campaign; George Long's translation is the source of the popular paraphrase "the happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts".
Aristotle · The opening sentence of the Metaphysics, in W. D. Ross's standard English translation.
Confucius · Analects, Book II, chapter 15, in James Legge's standard English translation.
Albert Einstein · Recorded by LIFE editor William Miller during a visit to Einstein's Princeton home a few months before his death.
William Shakespeare · Polonius's parting advice to his son Laertes.
Henry David Thoreau
C. S. Lewis · The popular "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another..." is a tidied paraphrase of this sentence.
Aristotle · Opening of his treatment of friendship; standard English translation from the Greek.
Ralph Waldo Emerson · From his essay "Friendship"; the full sentence begins "The only reward of virtue is virtue".
Oscar Wilde · Lord Darlington's line in Act I of the comedy.
Albert Einstein · Follows "I believe in intuition and inspiration" in the collection of his sayings published in 1931.
Nelson Mandela · The closing pages of his autobiography, written after his release and his election as South Africa's president.
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